The present invention relates to a refrigerator with a housing and a dispensing device on the front side of the housing for flowable and pourable chilled items such as in particular ice and chilled water. Such refrigerators are enjoying increasing popularity with users.
Refrigerators are also in demand which can be built in, i.e. their door can be fitted with a decorative panel whose design features match the fronts of adjacent furniture or equipment. In order to be able to align such a decorative panel precisely to the adjacent fronts it is usually adjustable in several spatial directions in relation to the door to which it is fitted.
If a dispensing device for ice or water is installed in the door of a refrigerator covered with a decorative panel the problem arises that the decorative panel must not block access to the dispensing device. If in order to provide access to the dispensing device a window is cut in the decorative panel, however, the window moves in relation to the dispensing device when the decorative panel is adjusted. If, as is usually the case, the dispensing device is installed in a recess on the front side, the recess and the window may not completely overlap, or parts of the front side may be visible between the edges of the recess and those of the window in different widths depending on the adjustment. It is therefore difficult to create a visually attractive transition between the door and the decorative panel in the area of the dispensing device.
A known possibility of avoiding these problems is to place the dispensing device in an area on the front side not belonging to the door and not to have any decorative panel in this area. This solution is unsatisfactory, however, because as parts of the refrigerator remain visible it does not actually constitute a built-in unit and, in addition, it leads to poor utilization of space in the refrigerator because not all of the front side of the refrigerator can be opened.